a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 26 vs. the Dubs: Jazz don’t lose to GS for once!

The boys didn’t get off to a slow start, so that’s good. The game was pretty even until the second quarter, when Jeremy Evans came in. He threw down (and by “threw down” I mean “THREW THE FREAK DOWN” three dunks in three minutes, and as a fan it was as exciting to watch that as it was that three different Jazzmen (Fes, Watson, and Miles) assisted them. Evans wasn’t just a breath of fresh air; he was one of those oxygen pumping machines they use in clubs. The third dunk put the Jazz up 9, but then Evans came out and some of the starters (Deron, Big Al, Millsap) came back in. A bunch of jump shots were thrown up, and the Jazz were down 3 going into the second half.

Nevertheless, the Jazz were playing team ball. At the half, six Jazzmen had between 4 and 9 points with none more than 9; four players had 4-6 rebounds; 5 had at least one steal; 6 had at least one assist. Most even of all was TOs. 7 players had 1 TO and Gordon had 2. ;)

In the second half, the Jazz went to work and really showed what they can do when they’re clicking. If you look at the stats, the starters and CJ had all the pretty lines while the second unit (-CJ) and Gordon had what appear to be sub-par lines. There’s just so much that doesn’t show up in box scores though; this was in reality yet another game where tonight’s incarnation of SWARM (the second unit) injected enough spark and hustle into the game that the starters were able to put it away.

Finally, while it sucked that Elson wasn’t available (visa issues requiring trip to Canada–a trip we are all familiar with since the same thing happened to Fes two years ago while Memo was in Turkey tending to his dad, and as a result the Koof got his first NBA start…doesn’t that seem like eons ago?), Fes played well, looking pretty mobile for his ankle issues, and definitely played a role in making an ugly rebounding differential less ugly.

I lied. This is the “finally.” Finally, absolutely loved seeing Deron showing some nasty against Monta.

More of that on a nightly basis please.

Random Bits:** Raja done shaved his head.

** In-house drama: It’s clear that whoever’s in charge of Jazz TV broadcast CGs has issues with Andrei. There is no other explanation for this picture ever seeing the light of day when there are literally hundreds of thousands of others to choose from.

** I’m sad there was no Biedrins-Fesenko FT shootout.

Post-Game Quotage (KFAN audio):** [Does Jeremy ever dunk on you in practice?] Millsap: Ahhhh…no comment. I can’t share that information (laughs).**Al Jefferson on Jeremy’s dunks: We see it everyday in practice, because he be dunking on me all the time. I’m glad to see him dunk on somebody else.**Deron on how Al loves being on a winning team: [We were] messing around, and I told him I was going to ask Kevin to trade him, and he said, ‘All right, I’m going to chain myself to the locker room. I’m not leaving.'”**Al on his 6 blocks: (sounding shocked and all awww shucks) I really didn’t know I had that many!**Phil Johnson: We talk about [our defensive rebounding problems] all the time, but unless you get into meat-grinder type drills, and we don’t do that because of injuries and stuff…it’s a matter of concentration. (Posted this because when Jerry last talked about these rebounding drills, they were called “hamburger drills.” Not getting the meat connection, but maybe that’s just me.)

Unintentional Dirty Quote Machines of the Night**** Boler: Big Al went in hard!

Meat grinder drills/hamburger drills seems to be very very physical, no hold bared and probably very few whistles. Meaning they are though on the bodies of the players, grinding upon them turning them into hamburger.

Deron is losing his nice guy status. Not a bad thing he is tearing them up and they know it.